


Challenge Accepted

by saladbabie



Series: Salad's Parkner Week 2020 [3]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Coming Out, I cried while writing this, M/M, Parkner Week 2020, Rated M For Death, Sickfic, Smoking, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, descriptions of breathlessness, mentions of vomit, this is not what they meant when they wrote this prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saladbabie/pseuds/saladbabie
Summary: Harley Keener was never one to shy away from a challenge. When Harley first met Peter he was told that Peter “couldn’t hate anyone.”That was a challenge.Parkner Week 2020 Day 4: Coming Out
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Salad's Parkner Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862653
Comments: 21
Kudos: 136
Collections: Parkner Week 2020





	Challenge Accepted

**Author's Note:**

> catch my entry for day 3 on my tumblr @ethereal-parkner

Harley Keener was never one to shy away from a challenge. When the older kids in school dared him to try a cigarette, he smoked one all the way down without so much as a cough. He’d seen his father do it enough when he was younger that he knew how to go for it immediately. In fact, he was so determined to prove the other boys wrong that he continued smoking for another four years.

When Harley first met Peter he was told that Peter “couldn’t hate anyone.” That was a challenge. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he’d utter everytime he waltzed into the lab. Peter was always there at 8:00 AM on the dot, sometimes earlier. (Harley would get there at noon if they were lucky). “Whatcha workin on today?” He’d watch Peter flush as he draped himself over the back of the boy’s chair, reaching over his shoulders to flip through the pages of scribbled notes and plans. Yes, he could certainly make the boy hate him and prove the old man wrong. (Watching him flush and stutter at his words was just a plus).

The younger boy wouldn’t answer some days, only tug at his shirt and flush red and pretend not to notice Harley. Other days he’d barely tug out a response, tripping over every word that tumbled through his mouth. His favorite days were the ones where he’d quip back. If Peter felt up to it, the two could go back and forth for hours until Tony kicked them out of the lab for distracting him. Of course, they never made it too far from the lab, choosing to sit cross legged on the floor outside of the lab door until they were allowed back in, continuing to jab back and forth at each other.

“What, have you got a crush on me?” Peter crossed his arms and gleamed at the boy who was laughing at him. Harley’s eyes widened and he bust out laughing again.

“A crush on you? I could _crush you_ , shortcake.” Harley held a hand up to his waist as if to motion how tall Peter was. Peter kicked out one leg to knock Harley in the knee. Grabbing his leg in pain, Harley couldn’t help but continue at the boy who was trying _so hard_ to act mad. His words barely came out as he was wheezing through glee, “You look like angry pingu!” 

“I already told you I’m not short!” Peter couldn’t help but giggle too at the comparison, proceeding to cross his arms and scrunch his nose for only a moment before dissolving back into a fit of hilarity.

Tony banned them from sitting outside the door of the lab when he kicked them out.

That was a challenge.

Harley’s new agenda was to get kicked out of the lab in every way possible. (Making Peter hate him could always wait for later). Just the next day, he tried figuring out every way he could get kicked out of the lab. It started with the banter, just as it had been already, but wasn’t that too boring? This was a challenge, Harley could do better than that. He decided to bring in the one thing he knew Tony would never _ever_ understand: gen z culture.

It took some help from Peter, but they were able to sneak some code to Friday while Tony was passed out in the lab. Through quiet giggles and occasional shushes, they somehow managed not to wake up the man sleeping fifteen feet away. Harley was banned from the lab for a week when Tony woke up to see a suit doing the Savage dance in the lab.

_The suit really could throw it back, though. Gross._

Peter wasn’t banned from the lab, but he still sat outside with Harley. They got to talking about new ways they could get kicked out of the lab and anger their mentor. 

“I know how to juggle,” Peter offered whilst stretching his arms out in front of him. 

“How on earth would that help us, Sugar?” Harley grinned tiredly and rolled his head to look at Peter. Peter was still showing up to sit outside the lab at 8:00 AM, and Harley couldn’t help but feel bad for letting the boy sit alone by the door for so long, so there he was, sitting outside the lab at hours that Harley’s not sure he’s ever seen before.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Peter articulated, “I know how to juggle _bricks_.” He shot one finger at Harley with a small grin.

“Wha- How did you learn to juggle _bricks_?” Harley sat up from where he was leaning against the wall.

“It was kind of an accident, long story though. What can you do?” Harley could barely comprehend what just happened. Peter just disclosed that he learned to _juggle bricks_ on accident and acted like it wasn’t a story worth telling.

“I mean, I can juggle bricks too.” Harley grinned, “But not for very long, and I’ll break a few things.” Peter stared at him before breaking into the most joyful laughter Harley thinks he’s ever seen in his life. His eyes lit up, and it took two minutes before Peter could speak again, and another ten before he’d totally calmed down from small giggle fits (but Harley was sure he’d caught Peter quietly laughing again hours later).

“Are you still laughing over the bricks?” Harley asked astounded. He couldn’t hold back a small chuckle at the sight of Peter letting go of barely contained laughter, noting that it was “just too funny.”

Harley didn’t notice a change until the day they watched Tony walk past them into the lab, the sun already up. They made it a habit to stay up and talk, now about anything that came to their minds. He listened to Peter talk about his friends from school, the science papers he’d read for free when his friend hacked the school’s database, and how he enjoyed _Solo_ for Han even though most people didn’t actually like the movie. In fact, Harley had somehow learned a lot about _Star Wars_. He felt like they had a nice friendship, even though making Peter hate him was still on his to-do list. Harley never backed down from a challenge, but he could postpone one. 

_Making Peter hate him could always wait for later._

“Do you think Tony would kick me out if I smoked in the lab?” Harley asked carelessly from the other side of the couch. Peter immediately turned his head up to look him in the eye,

“I think _I’d_ kick you out if you smoked in the lab. Do you know how dangerous that is? You shouldn’t be smoking at all, Harls.” 

Where did that come from?

“Aw, come on, shortcake. I was just kidding.” Harley chuckled.

“Harley, no, I’m serious,” Peter considered his next words carefully, “ _I bet you can’t quit smoking._ ”

Harley stood from his seat, thin blanket falling off of his lap along with Peter’s legs. “I can quit smoking,” he defended.

“Prove it.”

That was a challenge.

From that day on, Harley never so much as looked at a cigarette. It was almost nice, he considered, nobody had ever really cared enough to want him to stop. In fact, nobody had even realized how to push Harley the way that Peter learned to.

Harley thought it was normal, he really did. He was just spending time with a friend and having fun, every day, all day long, always finding new things to talk about. Hell, Harley would never have listened to _anyone_ talk about _Star Wars_ so much before he met Peter. Too bad he still had to make Peter hate him, right? It could wait.

Harley managed to accidentally find another way to get banned from the lab: getting sick. For a week, he was hurling, coughing, sneezing, and napping at all hours of the day. Peter, the saint, was by his side through the whole week. 

“Don’t worry, I can’t get sick,” he’d told him when Harley blearily expressed his concern. He didn’t really understand, but he was sure it all came down to the fever. _104, for fuck’s sake._

Peter came in with chicken soup, Gatorade, blankets, tissues, lysol, anything he could think of. 

“Bet you can’t eat the whole bowl of soup,” Peter would whisper as he sat next to Harley on the bed, resting a hand on his forehead. 

“Bet I can,” Harley would mutter half asleep and delirious with fever, “Gimme that.” Peter smiled and handed over the thermos of chicken soup. Harley never finished the soup before falling back to sleep, but Peter always let him believe that he had.

He laid in bed with Harley and let Harley press his burning forehead against his cold hands. _God, how Harley wished it were his hands in his instead of his fever_ , _wished he had Peter around forever to take care of him while he was sick, wished he had Peter around forever._

Harley got over most of the sickness smoothly enough. His fever went down, his food stayed in, and his nose cleared up. The part that stuck around, though, was his cough, but that could be ignored easily enough. Harley had to make up for lost time with his best friend and terrorize their mentor.

“I want to go into music, but I feel like I’d be wasting my brain, y’know? I mean, I want to study music in college, but everything in my life has been pointing me towards engineering, or business, or whatever.” Harley sighed, leaning his head back against the wall.

“You can do whatever you want. If you really wanted you could even double major,” Peter offered with a frown when Harley let out a breathy cough, “You’ve had that cough for a while now. Maybe we should get it checked out?”

“No, it’ll go away. I’ve been sick before, it’ll just figure itself out. But I feel like I’d be letting down everybody if I didn’t go on into SI. Like, why have we been here this whole time? Why have I spent so much time in the lab?” Harley wheezed again prompting Peter to rub his back with a gentle hand on his wrist. Peter always knew what to do, could always help. Making Peter hate him could _always_ wait for later.

“We just like to spend time with you. You know Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts wouldn’t be disappointed, and if you really wanted to still do SI, you know Ms. Potts knows more than some old professors would,” Peter grinned with a lilt to his voice, “You can still play music if you want. Get the best of both worlds, like Hannah Montana.”

“You know I’m not Miley, I’m Travis.” Harley laughed.

“You can still be Travis if you’re playing the cello.”

It only took Harley two weeks to decide that he liked Peter’s idea. Studying music but still being able to take over SI, Pepper had already offered to teach him everything there is to know about running the company. Four years in a music program, and the rest of his life running Stark Industries with Peter, it didn’t sound so bad. (Unless Peter hated him, but that could _wait_ ).

Another two weeks and Harley was checked into the hospital, Peter refusing to leave his side. They told him that his body wasn’t reacting well to the flu he’d recovered from and that his lungs were struggling to keep up. Harley knew why, Peter knew he knew. 

“Don’t be afraid. The two of us can get through anything, don’t even worry. We’re, like, the dream team.” Peter sat on the edge of the hospital bed and spouted off everything that came to mind. Really optimistic, Harley thought, considering he’d just been told that his lungs may fail to keep up at all, but that was why he loved Peter so much, always so optimistic.

…

 _Fuck_.

So Harley had feelings for Peter, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he’d had said feelings for quite some time and never addressed it even with himself. Because he was too chicken to admit his feelings to himself? Because he’s too chicken to admit his feelings to his beloved?

Is that a challenge?

He could put that off until he got better. He could wait until Peter hated him. He could wait. Wait, wait, wait. He wasn’t scared to admit his feelings to Peter and lose him. He wasn’t scared to make Peter hate him and lose him. He just needed more time, he had more to hold onto before then.

 _He needed more time_.

More time to have a best friend, more time to play music and build nothing in the lab, more time to risk his friendship for love because, yes, he fell so in love with the best friend who was supposed to hate him. More, more, more time.

Harley couldn’t say he was surprised to hear the words “terminal illness” when the doctor came into his room with that look on his face. It sounded like a challenge, Harley knew it was an obstacle. What was a challenge was the ticking of the clock on the wall, counting out loud every second that Peter lived on not knowing how Harley felt. 

He pretended to not hear his friend cry in the dark room at endless hours of the night. He pretended not to think about the future that he planned out with his friend. He pretended not to notice the way Tony could barely stand being in the room with him. He pretended not to feel the ache in his chest with each weak breath he tried so hard to take. Evading the end wasn’t a challenge. Greeting it with courage was a challenge.

“Peter?” He was leaving soon. He wasn’t ready. His music, his unfinished projects, his Peter.

“Can I tell you something?” Someone else could play music, right? Someone else would interpret his notes, right? Someone else would love Peter, he knew that. _That may have been the worst part._

“I, I like guys. No. I like you. I love you so much.” The words had no pitch, no volume. 

One last challenge.

Maybe Peter would hate him for leaving him so soon, not giving him any time. Peter could hate him and find a new best friend, a better lover, never grieve or shed a tear. Harley Keener never shied away from a challenge. (Peter loved hard. Harley’s picture stayed in his wallet all the way through old age nonetheless).

_Once I was told that good men get better with age._

_We’re just gonna skip that stage._

_-“What Would I Do?” Falsettos_

**Author's Note:**

> join the [Parkner Discord](https://discord.gg/cxwUkVW) for fun times and fun friends and cool content  
> leave me a comment so i feel better after accidentally making myself cry


End file.
